Month: June 2016

There are a lot of ways to have your morning cup of coffee. You may take it black. You may take it with cream— a little, or a lot. You might drink it from your favorite mug on the porch. Or you might drink it on the way to work, one hand clutching your travel mug, the other on the wheel.

But, undeniably, one of the best ways to have your coffee is with a doughnut. Though a doughnut may not always accompany your coffee, when it does, there’s cause for celebration. Today, June 3, is National Doughnut Day and Tiny Footprint Coffee is here to celebrate one of our favorite pairings: doughnuts and coffee.

Let’s start with some History shall we?

Back in 16something Dutch settlers arrived here in the new world. With them they brought many things, among them the oliebollen– doughnuts made by scraping dough off the end of a spatula into a vat of frying oil. Known these days as “donut holes,” these fried dough balls were traditionally enjoyed during the Christmas season. If you’re anything like me, you’re thinking that making these sounds easy — make the perfect round donut hole with a quick flick of the wrist. But sticky dough makes for less-than-perfect balls and a pan of hot oil makes for skittish amateur fry cooks. Even though we sugar coated these doughnuts, I’ll be honest in my critique: these things look more like cheese curds than any doughnut I’ve ever seen.

As we move away from the home frying pan and into the world of bakeries, we see the rise of something that better resembles the modern day doughnut: The classic doughnut with a hole in the middle of it. Kind of like this:

As a company which is built on function first, form second, we like to believe that this design resulted from “the pursuit for the best product.” Legend says that once bakers realized that adding eggs made for richer, thicker dough, they never looked back. The downside? The middle didn’t cook through and came out too doughy. Rather than trying to convince the public to eat dark (burnt) donuts, they — quite literally– cut out the problem. If you enjoyed my first attempt with the oliebollen, then you’ll certainly love this black and white photo — my take on the “dawn of the doughnut.”

Ready for some Kitchen Recipes?

Here at Tiny Footprint Coffee, we took all week to scour (read: googled), scheme and devise our doughnut recipes. This was a part of a mini-project we are working on here at the roastery, in our homes and over the web. Our thought process went something like, “if it’s good in a cup, why not in a dish?” Today, we explore the Chocolate Cake Donut with Coffee Glaze.

This doughnut was our favorite creation of the week. The greatest part? This recipe yields both whole doughnuts and doughnut holes! The chocolate cake donut stemmed from a standard cake donut recipe – filled with flour, cocoa, sugar, eggs and buttermilk among all the other little stuff. Wanting to elevate the flavor and bring out the richness of the chocolate, we decided to add just a little brewed coffee into the mix. Our Nicaragua Segovia has strong hints of cocoa, making it a natural pair for the chocolate doughnut. Yet the glaze is what really takes the cake on this recipe (extra pun anyone?). It’s a relatively simple glaze consisting of powdered sugar, vanilla extract and of course, more coffee. For flavor and texture we added both our brewed coffee as well as some of the grounds. Sure, it comes out looking like an Oreo donut but any coffee lover would rejoice with such a surprise. Something like this:

No matter if you prefer your doughnuts infused with coffee, or just with a cup on the side, we hope you’re celebrating National Doughnut Day today. From all of us at Tiny Footprint Coffee, Cheers!